Look into my Life
by xiloveinuyashax
Summary: Twice during the night, my chest stopped filling with air. Twice, it was empty, and as dry as a leather goatskin. Although my mouth was wide open to the dawn wind, I could not drink it in.
1. Prologue

hello! well i got this idea from a novel called sarah so i decided to make it inuyasha style! hope you guys enjoy this, if not then i'll stop the story!

Characters

Kagome: Daughter of a chief in the advance southern territory,

Species: Black Indian dog demon.

Age: 13 (in the prologue she is 22yrs old but chapter one is is only 13 yrs old.)

Hair Color: BlueBlack

Eye Color: Greenish-yellow

Skin Color: Olive tan

Height: 5'8 (later on ) at 13 is only a stick skinny girl.

Measurements: 36c, 24 waist, 32 hips. (this is later on when she is more matured)

Sango: Handmaid and friend of Kagome's.

Species: Brown Wolf demon

Age: 15

Hair Color: Brown

Eye Color: Hazel

Skin Color: Light tan.

Height: 5'9

Measurements: 32b, 25 waist, 32hips

Inu Yasha: Son of the chief of the barbaric northern territory.Heir of status of Chief, later in the future will be King,

Species: White Indian dog demon.

Age: 17

Hair Color: Silver White

Eye Color: Gold

Skin Color: Dark tan

Height: 6'0

Body: Slim, cut and lean with broad shoulders.

Miroku: Cousin of Inu Yasha and Sesshomaru, second in command warrior of the nothern territory.

Species: Hanyou Blue Wolf demon and White Indian dog demon. (I know ironic that Miroku is the hanyou in this story! LOL)

Age : 17 (few months younger than Inu Yasha)

Hair Color: Dark blue

Eye Color: Violet

Skin Color: Peach almost white.

Height: 5'11

Body: Similar to Inu Yasha's but a little but slimmer.

Sesshomaru: First son of the nothern Chief. First in command warrior.

Species: White Indian dog demon.

Age: 220 - human- 22

Hair Color : Silver White

Eye Color: Dark Gold

Skin Color: White as snow

Height: 6'2

Body: Slim and cut with broad shoulders like Inu Yasha's but leaner.

Rin: Wife of Sesshomaru, daughter of a western territory doctor.

Species: Human

Age: 118 - human- 18

Hair Color: Dark Brown

Eye Color: Brown

Skin Color: peache

Height: 5'7

Measurements: 34b, 22 waist, 34 hips.

Kikyo: Witch doctor in the outside village of the southern territory.

Species: Human

Age: 25

Hair Color: Dark Brown

Eye Color: Fawn (means almost black)

Skin Color: Pasty pale white

Height: 5'9

Measurements: 32a, 24 waist, 36hips

Naraku: god of the underworl and evil.

Hair Color: Black

Eye Color: Blood red

Skin Color: Pasty white

Height: 6'0

Body: (i don't think anyone cares!) slim.

Kaliee: God of the earth

Hair Color: Blonde

Eye Color: Sky Blue

Skin Color :Peach Cream

Height: 6'0

Body: 34c, 24waist, 36hips

ok about the ageing process for demons: age normaly like humans til the age of 20, the ageing slows down to where every 100 years, the demon will look one year older.

**PROLOGUE**

Twice during the night, my chest stopped filling with air. Twice, it was empty, and as dry as a leather goatskin. Although my mouth was wide open to the dawn wind, I could not drink it in. I lifted my shaking hands in the darkness. Pain ran through my bones, greedy as vermin.

And then it stopped. Twice, the air returned to my lips, flowing over my tongue as cool and sweet as milk.

It's a sign. I know how to recognize the signs. After so many years, so many trials and tribulations, Naraku, the underworld god, is going to separate Kagome from InuYasha. Tonight, tomorrow night, very soon. He will take my life.

That's the way things are. That's the way they must come to pass. There's no point protesting, no point being afraid. Naraku will mark out my route away from Kaliee's land that still bears my steps. A sick demoness's steps, so light the grass hardly bends beneath my weight.

That's the way things are, the way they're meant to be. The next time the air refuses to come into my mouth, I won't be so scared.

This morning, as down was spreading over the meadows and dusty cliffs around Arivousuke, I left the mother's tent, but instead of going to wait outside InuYasha's tent with bread and fruit, as I've done billions of times since he became my husband and mate, I came here , to the hill of Qiytae-Ale, and sat down on a stone at the mouth of the cave of Isuamei. It took me a while to climb the hill. But i don't care how hard it is. If Naraku decides to take my breath from me in broad daylight, this is where I want my body to collapse, here in this garden, in front of this cave.

This place fills me with peace and joy. A white cliff surrounds the mouth of the cave like a well-constructed wall. From beneath the shade of a huge poplar, and spring runds down into a vast semicircular garden. Its slope, like a palm open in greeting, descends twoard the plain, marked with long low walls built by the worriors, planted with thick trees, and fragrant with sage and rosemary.

From here, I can see our tents drawn close around InuYasha's black-and-white tent. There are too many to count. Hundreds, I suppose. The herds stretch as far as the eye can see, their wool brilliant white against the grass, which is greener than the water of a pool. It's the end of spring. The rains were mild and came the right time. I can also see the smoke rising vertically from the fires, which is a sign that the east wimd, heavy with sand and dryness, will spare us again today. Even from, up here, I can hear horns, dogs barking as they gather the animals, occasionally the cries of children. My hearing is no weaker than my sight. Kagome's Body still holds out!

Youth knows nothing of time, old age knows nothing but time. When you're young, you play hide-and-seek with the shade. When you're old, you seek out the warmth of the sun. But the shade is always there, while the sun is fleeting. It rises, crosses the sky, and disappears, and we wait impatiently for its return. These days, I love time as much as I love Taka, the son I waited so long to see.

For a long time, the cycle of swasons left no trace on me, One day followed another, and my body showed no sign of them. That lasted many years and still do. My name wasn't yet Kagome, but Kagomai. They said I was the most beautiful women. My beauty was a beauty that inspired as much fear as desire. A beauty that ver faded, troubling and doomed, like a flower that would never bear fruit. Not a day went by that I didn't cure this beauty that wouldn't leave me.

Until Kaliee at last wiped out the terrible act that was the cause of everything. A sin I committed as an innocent child, for love for the man who was then called Inu Yasha. A sin, or a word I wasn't able to hear, for we knew so little then.

The sun is high now, Through the fine needles of the cedars and the dancing leaves of the great poplar, it warms my sick body. I'm so think now I could wrap myself in my long hair, which has never lost its shine. Such a little body, but one that harbors so many memories1 So many images, scents, caresses, faces, emotions, and workds that I could populate the wholeland of Waiula with them.

I love this place. Here, the memories gush from me like a waterfall cascading into a river. The cool air from inside the cave brushes my neck and my cheek with the tenderness of a familiar whisper. At moments it seems to me it's my own breath, the breath that Naraku withheld from me last night.

In truth, this place is a nail in the pillar of time, like the pottery nails to mark the presence of the souls in the splendid walls of my city, Suirke.

Two nights ago I received another sign from Naraku. I had a dream with my eyes wide open. I was still breathing peacefilly, but my body was stiff and cold. In the darkness of the tent, without even the moonlight filtering through the canvas, I suddenly heard the banging of metal tools on the stone and the voices of men at work. I wondered what kind of work they could be doing in the middle of the night, so close to the mothers' tent. I wanted to get up and look. But before I could life myself up to on my elbow, I saw, I saw with my eyes what only the spirit of dreams can make us see.

It was no longer night but day, The sun shone down on the white cliff and the mouth of the cave of Isuamei. That was where men had been working since the first light of dawn, building walls, thick, solid walls. A beautiful facade, complete with door and windows. A house of stone as splendid as any palace in Suirke or anyother place. A dwelling I recognized immediately.

They were building out tomb.

The tomb or Inu Yasha and his wife, Kagome.

I shall be the first to take my place in it. My beloved Inu Yasha will lay my body there so that at last I can attain the peace of the other world.

My dream faded, The blows of hammer on stone ceased. I opened my eyes. The tent was dark, and Rin and Sango were sleeping beside me, breathing peacefully.

But the meaning of the dream remained with me, All of us to whom Naraku reveals himself, this now numerous people to whom he steal lives from.We know only cities of tents, cities of desert and wind and wandering. Yet I, Kagome was born in a house with thirty rooms, in a city that contained a hundred smiliar houses, its not beautiful temple as high as the hill of Qiytae-Ale, its outer walls thicher than an ox.

In my whole life, folling Inu Yasha into the mountians where the Saipa river rises, walking beside him in search of the land of Wailula, or even as far as the end of the earth, I have never seen a land as splended as the Suirke I knew as a child. And I have never forgotten it.

Nor have I forgotten what I was taught there: That the strngth of the people of Shay and Akkad lies in the beauty of thier cities, the solidity of their walls, the perfection of their irrigation systens, the magnificence of their gardens.

So, when day had broken, I went to see Inu Yasha. While he ate, I told him what I had seen in my dream.

"It's time for out people to build walls, houses, and cities," I said. "Time for us to take root in this land. Remember how we loved the walls of Salem. How dazzled we were by the Kings palaces. But in this camp, the camp of the great King Inu Yasha, tha man who hears the work Kaliee and is head by her, the women still weave canvas for tents as they did when your father Inu Tashio's clan caped beneath the walls of Suirke, in the spare reserved for the barbaric Indians, the men with no city."

Inu Yasha listened, never taking his eyes off me. "I know you've always missed the walls of your city," He said, smiling.

He took my fingers in his, and for a long moment we remained still. Two bodies, one healthy, one sick, linked by our hands and by the thousand of tender words we no longer need to speak.

At last, I said what I had been wanting to say since my dream had faded. 'When I've stopped breathing, I wan you to bury me in the cave of Arivousuke, on the hill of Qiytae-Ale. The gardens around it are the more beautiful I've seen since the gardens of my fathers palace. They belong ot a villager named Toya. Buy them from him; I know he won't refuse. Once you've buried me, bring masons from Salem. If they're as skillful as King masons, so much the better. Ask them to build walls at the mouth of the cave, the most beautiful, most solid walls they can build, for the tomb of Inu Yasha and Kagome. It will be out people's first house, a place for them to gather, in all their great number, happy and confident, Take and Kionu will be with them. The two of them together, Isn't it up to us, to ensure the future?"

Inu Yasha had no need to primise me he would carry out my wishes. I know he will, for he always has.

Now, I can wait in peace for my breath to leave me, Wait and remember. There is no wind and yet, about me, the leaves of the poplar tremble, filling the air with a noise like rain. Under the cedars and acacias, the light dances in patches of molten gold. A fragrance of lily and mint comes to rest on my lips. Swallows play and sing about the cliff. Just like that day. The day the blood flowed for the first time between my thighs. The day the long life of Kagomai, daughter of Bisum-Usur, daughter of Taram, began.


	2. The Bridal Blood

I don't not own Inu Yasha and co.

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**CHAPTER 2: SUIRKE - The Bridal Blood**

Kagomai clumsily pushed aside the curtain that hung in the dorrway and ran to the middle of the brick terrace that over looked the women's courtyard. Dawn was breaking, and there was just enough light for her to see the blood on her hands. She closed her eyes to hold back the tears.

She did not need to look down to know that her tunic was stained. She could feel the fine woolen cloth sticking wetly to her thighs and knees.

Here it was again! A sharp pain, like a hell demon's claw moving between her hips! She stood frozen, her eyes half closed. The pain faded as suddenly as it had come.

Kagomai held out her soiled hands in front of her. She should have implored Inanna, the almighty Lady of Heaven, but no word passed her lips. She was petrified. Fear, disgust, and denial mingled in her mind.

Only a moment ago, she hand woken suddenly, her belly ringed with pain, and her hands between her thighs. Into this blood that was flowing out of her for the first time. The bridal blood. The blood that creates life.

It had not come as she had been promised it would. It was not like dew or honey. It flowed as if from an invisible wound. In a moment of panic, she had seen herself being emptied of blood like an ewe under the sacrificial knife.

She had reacted like a silly child, and now she felt ashamed. But her terror had been so great that she had sat up moaning on her bed and rushed outside.

Now, in the growing light of day, she looked at her bloodstained hands as if they did not belong to her. Something strange was happening in her body, something that had obliterate her happy childhood at a stroke.

Tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and all the days and years to come, would be different. She knew what awaited her. What awaited every girl in whom the bridal blood flowed. Her handmaid Sango and all the other women in the household would laugh. They would dance and sing and give thanks to Nintu, the Midwife of the world.

But Kagomai felt no joy. At the moment, she wished her body was someone else's.

She took a deep breath. The smell of the night fires floating in the cool air of early morning calmed her a little. The coolness of the bricks beneath her bare feel did her good. There was no noise in the house or the gardens. Not even the flight of a bird.The whole city seemed to be holding its breath, waiting for the sun to burst forth. For the moment it was still hidden on the other side of the world, but the ocher light that preceded it was spreading over the horizon like oil.

Abruptly Kagomai turned and went back through the curtain into her bedchamber, In the dim light, it was just possible to make out the big bedstead where two sisters lay sleeping. Without moving, Kagomai listened to her sisters' regular breathing. At least she had not woken them.

She advanced cautiously to her own bed. She wanted to sit down, but hesitated.

She thought of the advice Sango had given her. Change your tunic, take off the sheet, roll the soiled straw in it, go to the door and take some balls of wool dipped in sweet oil, wash your thighs and genitals with them, then take some other balls, scented with essence of terebinth, and use them to absorb the blood. All she had to do was perform a few simple actions. But she couldn't. She didn't know why, but she couldn't bear even the thought of touching herself.

Anger was beginning to replace fear. What if her two sisters discovered her and roused the whole household, crying out across the men's courtyard, "Kagomai is bleeding, Kagomai has the bridal blood!"

That would be the most disgusting thing of all.

Why did the blood running between her thighs make her more adult? Why, at the same time as she gained the freedom to speak, was she going to lose the freedom to act? For that was what was going to happen. Now, in exchange for a few silver shekels or a few measures of barley, her father could give her to a man, A stanger she might have to hate for the rest of her days. Why did things have to happen that way? Why not another way?

Kagomai tried had to dismiss this chaos of thoughts, this mixture of sadness and anger, but she couldn't, She couldn't even remember a single work of the prayers Sango had taught her. It was as if an evil spirit had banished them from her head and mind. Lady Moon would be furious. She would send down a curse on her.

Anger and denial swept through her again. She couldn't stay here in the dark. But she didn't want to wake Sango. Once Sango took charge, Things would really start.

She had to flee. To flee beyond the wall that enclosed the city, perhaps as far as the bend in the Saipa, where the labyrinth of the lower city. That was another world, a fascinating but hostile world, and Kagomai wasn't brave enough to go there. Instead, she took refuge in the huge garden, which was full of a hundred kinds of trees and flowers and vegetables and surrounded by a wall that in places was higher than the highest rooms. She hid in a tamarisk grove clinging to the oldest part of the wall, where sun, wind, and rain had, in places, dissolved the stack of bricks and reduced it to a hard ocher dust. When the tamarisks were in bloom, their huge pink flowers spread like luxuriant hair over the wall and could be seen clear across the city. They had become the distinguishing feature of the house of Bisum-Usur, son of Ella Dum-tu, Chief of Suirke, merchant and high-ranking official in the service of King Amar-Sin, who ruled the empire of Suirke bue the will of almighty Ea.

"KAGOMAI! Kagomai!"

She recognized the voices: Lillu's piercing shriek and Sango's more muted and anxious tones. Some of the handmaids had already searched the garden, but finding nothing had gone away again.

Silence returned, except for the murmur of the water flowing in the irrigation channels and the chirping of the birds.

From where she was, Kagomai could see everything but could not be seen, Her father's house was one of the most beautiful in the royal city, It was shaped like a hand enclosing a huge rectangular central courtyard, which was reached through the main entrance. At either end, the courtyard was separated by two green-and-yellow brick buildings, open only for receptions and celebrations, and by two smaller courtyards, the women's and the men's. The men's quarters, with their white staircases, overhung the temple of the family's ancestors, the storehouses, and the room where her father's scribes worked, while the women's chamber were built above the kitchens, the handmaids' dormintories, and the chamber of blood, Both opened onto a broad terrace, shaded by bowers of vines and wisteria, with a view of the gardens. ther terrace allowed the men to join the women at night without have to cross the courtyards.

From her groove, Kagomai could also see a large part of the cury, and, towering over it like a mountain, the Ziggurat, the Sublime Platform. Not a day went by that she did not come here to admire the gardens of the ziggurat. They were a lake of foliage between earth and sky, full of every flower and every tree the gods had sown on the earth. From this riot of greenery emerged the steps, covered in black-and-white ceramics, that led up to the Sublime Bedchamber, with its lapis lazuli columns and walls. There, once a year, the king of Suirke was united with the Lady of Heaven.

Today, though, she had eyes only for what was happening in the house, Everything seemed to have calmed down. Kagomai had the impression they had stopped searching for her, When the handmaids had appeared earlier in the garden, she had beem tempted to join them. But now it was too late for her to leave her hiding place. With every hour that passed, she was more at fault. If anyone saw her in this state, they would scream with fright and turn away, shielding their eyes as if they had seen a woman possessed by the hell demons, It was unthinkable that she could show herself like this to the women. It would be a blemish on her father's house. She had to stay here and wait until nightfall. Only then could she perform her ablutions in the garden's irrigation basin. After that, she would go and ask Sango for forgiveness, With enough tears, and enough terror in her voice, to mollify her.

Until then she had to forget her thirst and the heat that was gradually transforming the still air into a strange miasma of dry dust.

SHE stiffened when she heard the shouts.

"Kagomai! Answer me, Kagomai! I know you're there! Do you want to die today, with the shame of the gods on you?"

She recognized the slim light tan calves, the pink-and-green tunic with this white border instantly.

"Sango?"

"Who else were you expecting?" the handmaid retorted, in an angry whisper.

"How did you manage to find me?"

Sango took a few steps back. "I could smell you even with all the flower scents, now stop your chattering," she said, lowering her voice even more, "and come out of there right now before anyone sees you."

"You mustn't look at me," Kagomai warned.

She emerged from the copse, straightening up with difficulty, her muscles aching from her long immobility.

Sango stifled a cry. "Forgive her, almighty Ea! Forgive her!"

Kagomai did not dare look Sango in the face, She stared down at her short, round shadow on the ground, and saw her raise her arms to heaven then hug then to her bosom.

"Almighty Lady of Heaven," Sango muttered, in a choked voice, "forgive me for having seen her soiled face and hands! She is only a child, holy Inanna. Nintu will soon purify her."

Kagomai restrained herself from rushing into the handmaid's arms. "I'm so sorry," she said, in a barely audible whisper, "I didn't do as you told me to. I couldn't."

She did not have time to say more. A linen sheet was flung over her, covering her from head to foot and Sango's hands clasped her waist, Now Kagomai no longer needed to hold back, and she leaned against the firm body of the woman who had not only need her nurse, but had also been like a sister to her.

"Yes, you silly little thing," Sango whispered in her ear through the linen, the anger gone from her voice, the tremor of fear still there, "I've known about this hiding place for a long time, Since the first time you can here! Did you think you could escape your Sango? In the name of almighty Ea, what possessed you? Did you tyink you could hide from the scared laws of Suirke? To go where? To remain at fault your whole life? Oh, my Kagomai! Why didn't you come to see me? Do you think you're the first to be afraid of the bridal blood?"

Kagomai wanted to say something to justify herself, but Sango placed a clawed hand on her mouth.

"No! You can tell me everything later, Nobody much see us here. Great Ea! Who knows what would happen if you were seen like this? Your aunts already know you've become a woman. They're waiting for you in the chamber of blood, Don't be afraid, they won't scold if you arrive before the sun goes down. I've brought you a pitcher of lemon water and terebinth bark so you can wash your hands and face. Now throw your soiled tunic under the tamarisk. I'll come back later to burn it. Wrap yourself in this linen veil. Make sure you avoid your sisters, or nobody will be able to stop those pests from going and telling your father everything."

Kagomai felt Sango's clawed hands stroking her cheek through the cloth.

"Do what I ask of you. And hurry up about it. You father must know nothing of your escapade."

"Sango."

"What now?" Sango said.

"Will you be there, too? In the chamber of blood, I mean."

"Of course. Where else should I be?" she replied with a smile.

WASHED and scented her linen veil knotted over her left shoulder, Kagomai reached the women's courtyard without meeting a soul. She had gathered all her courage to approach the mysterious doors she had never gone anywhere near.

From the outside, the chamber of blood was nothing but a long white wall with no windows that took up almost the entire space below the quarters reserved for the women: Bisum's wife, sisters, daughters, female relatives, and handmaids. The door was cleverly concealed by a can portico covered with a luxuriant ocher-flowered bignonia, so that it was possible to cross the women's courtyard in all directions without ever seeing it.

Kagomai went through the portico. Before her was a small double door of thick cedarwood, the bottom half painted blue and the top half red: the door of the chamber of blood,

Kagomai had only a few steps to take to open this door. But she did not move. Invisible threads were holding her back. Was it fear?

Like all girls her age, she had heard many stories about the chamber of blood. Like all girls her age, she knew that once a month demonesses went and shut themselves in there for seven days. During full moons, they would gather there to make vows and petitions that could be said nowhere else. It was a place where women laughed, wept, ate honey and cakes and fruit, shared their dreams and secrets, and sometimes died in agony. Occasionally, through the thick walls, Kagomai had heard the screams of a demoness in labor. She had seen women go in there, happy with their big bellies, and not come out again. No men ever entered, or even tried to peer inside. Anyone curious of foolhardy enough to do so would carry the stain of their offense down with them to the hell of Naraku.

But in truth, she knew very little of what went on there. She had heard the most absurd rumors, whispered by her sisters and who evtered the chamber of blood for the first time, and none of the _munus,_ the _opened women,_ every divulged the secret.

Her day had come. Who could go against the will of the gods? Sango was right. It was time. She could not remain at fault any longer. She must have the courage to open that door.

yippy i'm done!

thank you for taking the time reading this... PLEASE REVIEW!


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